Should a Second Demographic Transition Follow the First? Demographic Contrasts: Canada and South Korea

Abstract

This paper compares and contrasts the demographic situations in Canada and South Korea in order to determine whether South Korea will undergo a second demographic transition similar to that experienced in Canada. Using fertility nuptiality divorce cohabitation and extramarital births as indicators the similarities and differences in demographic changes between the two countries are highlighted. Of these indicators those of fertility and nuptiality rates in Canada and South Korea were shown to have great similarities during the 1990s. Both countries were noted to have the same demographic features of below replacement fertility and high age at first marriage which can be viewed as first signs of the second demographic transition. In contrast to fertility and nuptiality the levels of divorce extramarital births and cohabitation differed in the two countries. Such similarities and dissimilarities in the indices between the two countries clearly show that South Korea has indeed undergone the first demographic transition but not the second. In terms of the possibility of a second transition it is noted that as long as culture and religion play a decisive role in mens and womens lives there is little chance of the Western style of second demographic transition taking place in cultural and religious societies.